WarSclerotic

Facing Hamas – JPost – Opinion – Editorials.

By REUTERS/Amir Cohen The latest round of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza is part of a pattern. Every few months, Islamist terror organizations loosely linked or opposed to Hamas launch attacks against Israel in an attempt to undermine Israeli military deterrence.

Hamas plays the game of claiming that it is not directly connected to the attacks while doing little to prevent them. In this way, Hamas hopes not to provoke Israel while at the same time avoiding a direct confrontation with hard-line Islamist terrorists attempting to continue their armed struggle against Israel.

The trigger for the latest conflagration was the targeted killing of Zuhair Qaisi, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip. The IDF says Qaisi was behind the August 2011 gun and bomb attacks near Eilat that left eight Israelis dead. He was apparently planning a repeat performance, also to be launched from Sinai, a lawless no-man’s land nominally under Egyptian rule and home to Islamist terrorists and Beduin drugs and arms smugglers. But the IDF took the initiative, bombing a car carrying Qaisi and another top terrorist in the organization released in the Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange.

In October 2011, there was another flare-up after Islamic Jihad fired a Grad rocket at Rehovot to mark the October 1995 assassination in Malta of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shkaki. Israel retaliated, killing five terrorists, including Ahmed Sheikh Khalil, the head of the Islamic Jihad’s rocket production facilities.

But even when there is no official “escalation,” the various terrorist organizations operating in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the anarchic Sinai have kept up a steady stream of fire directed at about a million civilians – men, women and children – living within range of Kassam rockets, mortar shells and Grad missiles.

Over the course of 2011, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PRC and other terrorist organizations fired 680 deadly projectiles of various types from the Gaza Strip at surrounding towns, kibbutzim and moshavim, a significant rise from the 365 fired during 2010. Sixteen-year-old Daniel Viflic was killed by Hamas terrorists who fired a Kornet anti-tank missile at the school bus he was riding in on April 7, 2011.

Israel significantly restored its deterrence after launching Operation Cast Lead – the 22-day military incursion in the Gaza Strip that began in December 2008 and ended in January 2009. But in the months since, there has been a steady deterioration of the security situation. Thousands of families now live under the constant threat of mortar, rocket and missile fire. Many lack proper bomb shelters.

True, the Iron Dome system has been a game-changer. Its three rocket-defense batteries – in Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon – have significantly improved Israel’s defense capabilities. Dozens of rockets and missiles that might have hurt or injured Israelis were shot from the air. This has given our leaders the breathing room to plan for the future. Israel would have no choice but to react on a much wider scale if one of the more-than-100 recent mortar shells, rockets and missiles caused series injuries or deaths.

Meanwhile, the air force has succeeded in accurately pinpointing about 20 terrorists, many of them caught in the act of firing mortar shells, rockets and missiles at Israel. Civilian deaths on the Palestinian side have been kept to a minimum.

However, as Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz noted in November and reiterated in December on the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, a military offensive in Gaza will be launched “sooner or later.”

Hamas cannot be allowed to continue to play the game of claiming it is not directly connected to the attacks while doing little to prevent them.

We are living in an untenable situation in which every few months, there is an “escalation,” and between these “escalations,” Gaza’s various terrorist groups maintain a steady stream of mortar shells, rockets and missiles. Over a million of our citizens live in constant danger and our children are regularly kept home from school.

Unfortunately, sooner or later our leaders will be forced to confront Hamas. The Iron Dome system provides them with important breathing time. But that time is limited.

Hamas sees ceasefire soon; PRC, PIJ disagr… JPost – Middle East.

By Reuters

A truce is likely soon in the cross-border hostilities between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza but the timing depends on Israel, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said on Monday.

“I expect matters will calm down,” Zahar told Reuters in Cairo.

“The statements coming from them (Israel) either in public or via mediators, especially Egypt, say that they do not want escalation.”

Asked how long it would take, Zahar said he did not know but it would depend on Israel, which he blamed for setting off the latest round of violence by killing Palestinian leaders on Friday.

“Hamas has not taken any decision now to escalate. It is trying with the Palestinian factions and the rest of the parties to reach a conditional truce, a truce conditioned on the Israeli enemy halting the aggression and pledging that targeting will not happen again,” he said, referring to Israel’s killing of the leaders.

Zahar’s comments came as representatives from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said Monday that they oppose signing a ceasefire with Israel, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported.

“We will not agree on a ceasefire stipulated by Israel, neither do we accept a ceasefire while the lives of our people are taken without restraint,” Ma’an quoted Islamic Jihad officials as saying. Ma’an added that the PRC’s armed wing supported Islamic Jihad’s stance on the issue.

The two terrorist groups have fired over 200 rockets at Israel since Friday, 39 on Monday alone.

Monday was the fourth day of violence in which 23 Palestinians, most of them terrorists, have died.

The latest surge in violence spiraled on Friday when Israel killed the Popular Resistance Committees leader Zuheir al-Qaisi’s in the Hamas-run territory. The IDF has said that the assassination of Qaisi was part of an operation to thwart attempts by the PRC to carry out a terror attacks in Sinai, along the Israeli-Egyptian border.

Police: Several homes damaged in Ashdod rock… JPost – Headlines.

Northern-most strike yet: Grad lands near Gade… JPost – Defense.

By Nikola Solic / Reuters

A Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Gedera area on Monday, marking the northern-most point hit by terrorists in the current round of escalation that began Friday and has included the launching of some 200 rockets by terrorists targeting southern Israel.

The Grad, which struck in the Gedera area, was one of 25 rockets fired into Israel on Monday. Some damage was caused to a structure in the attack.

Earlier on Monday, terrorists in the Gaza Strip directed rocket salvos at two major cities, Beersheba and Ashdod.

At least seven of the 24 rockets fired on Monday were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system.

Five rockets fired toward Ashdod were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system later on Monday. An additional rocket exploded in the Ashdod area later on Monday, causing damage to homes.

Almost simultaneously to the offensive on Ashdod, two rockets landed in an open area outside of Beersheba on Monday morning and a third rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome.

The Home Front Command, along with the heads of a number of local authorities in southern Israel, decided Sunday night to cancel school in all towns and cities located between 7 km to 40 km from the Gaza Strip for the second straight day. The decision applied to the cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Netivot, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, Gadera, Rahat, Yavneh, Lakiyeh, and the Gan Yavneh Regional Council.

The IDF continued to respond to the attacks with at least nine airstrikes launched against terror targets in Gaza overnight Sunday and on Monday.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that two armed terrorists belonging to the organization were killed in IAF strikes, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed since hostilities began Friday to 20.

Palestinians later reported that three Palestinian civilians had been killed in IAF strikes. Gaza hospital sources added that 25 civilians were hurt when an Israeli rocket hit a house in northern Gaza. The IDF did not confirm the Palestinian reports.

The IAF strikes carried out early Monday morning targeted a weapons-storage site and four rocket-launch sites in the northern Gaza Strip and one rocket-launch site in the southern Gaza strip. The IDF confirmed hits on its targets, and stated that the strikes were in response to rocket fire.

The latest round of violence flared on Friday when an air strike killed two Palestinian terror leaders in Gaza accused by Israel of planning a cross-border attack via Egypt. A salvo of rockets followed, leaving six people wounded in Israel.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Game Changer: Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense System – THERESE ZRIHEN-DVIR, Regard d’un Ecrivain sur le Monde.

IDF Ground Invasion Option ‘On the Table’ – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

(On the table?!  We have to wait till a rocket hits a bus and kills 40 people?  ENOUGH !! – JW )

IDF soldiers enter Gaza in Cast Lead

Israel news photo: Flash 90

The IDF is trained and prepared for a ground invasion of Gaza, but it won’t happen in the immediate future, says its chief spokesman Yoav Mordechai.

Speaking to Voice of Israel government radio on the possibility of a ground incursion, he said, “The IDF is organized for that option. The situation in southern Israel is intolerable, but I can’t say if and when it will happen.”

The last major ground maneuver into Gaza was the three-week Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign from the end of December 2008 until the middle of January.

The Olmert government, in which Tzipi Livni was Foreign Minister, agreed to a ceasefire after accepting American and European promises they would place monitoring systems to prevent smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza. However, little was done, and European observers declined to be stationed in the area because of the dangers.

Mordechai said that the armed forces have killed 20 terrorists in Gaza since the resumption of violence Friday. He contrasted the pinpoint Israeli attacks on terrorists with the more than 140 rockets and missiles fired by Gaza terrorists on Israeli civilian areas.

The only Arab civilian casualty who was not a terrorist was a 12-year-old boy who approached a rocket launching site where a terrorist cell was about to be targeted, Mordechai said.

“The IDF attacked six targets overnight, one of them an Islamic Jihad weapons storage center in an area where people are living,” he added. “There have been civilian injuries. This is what happens when Islamic Jihad deploys in civilian population areas.

“We are defending Israel and we are worried about two million people in southern Israel who are not able to lead routine lives.”

He also confirmed that IDF Chief of Benny Gantz has canceled a planned trip to the United States, where he was to speak at an event honoring the IDF. Mordechai said that Lt. Gen. Gantz will decide later in the week whether to fly to Washington for scheduled meetings with government and military officials.

(I changed the chapter to one much more relevant to the issues discussed on this site. – JW )

I’ve received some inquiries about a book I wrote about my return to the IDF Navy during the first Gulf War after having been producing film and TV in Hollywood for six years.

I’ve never even mentioned it here because I am loath to use this site for self promotion.  However, given the interest expressed, I’m posting this now.  I’ve included a chapter below, and those who are cashed strapped can read the whole book in the “preview” on the book site.

Though I placed a “donate” button on the site a month or so ago, I have never directly asked for contributions to help me keep this site going.  Buying a book will be the equivalent of donating half the price to the site.

I promise you, it’s a great read.  Funny as hell in parts, fascinating in others and deeply self-reflective.

Joseph Wouk

Preview

Joseph Wouk, an ex-immigrant to Israel, now a Hollywood television producer, is overcome with guilt and horror as Saddam’s missiles target Tel Aviv. The sense of impotence, sitting in Los Angeles watching CNN report chemical warheads in Ramat Gan, is more than he can bear. Abandoning his wife and child, as well as a television film in development, he flies into the war zone to rejoin his old unit in the Israeli Navy. The only problem is, he’s been kicked out of the Navy reserves for having failed to report for duty in six years. They don’t need or want him back either. But Wouk is determined to “help”… Even if it means turning the whole I.D.F. Navy inside-out. Scuds, Duds, & Tyre is a hilarious and torturous new-journalistic account of Wouk’s return to the Israeli Navy during the Gulf War. In a style reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson and with themes reminiscent of his father, Herman Wouk, the book is original, insightful, and outrageous.

_____________________________________________________________________________

6.

Messiahs, Time Machines & Sitting Ducks

By the time dinner arrives two hours later, the whole plane has heard about “the Yossi’s” in the back.  The passengers sitting near us who had wanted to rest were totally out of luck.  Jokes, howls, leers, and roars, in a never-ending stream, pierce through a billowing cloud of cigarette smoke reminiscent of Mount Saint Helen.  I am having the time of my life.  What a great buncha guys!

The harassed stewardesses, who are trying to satisfy the “infinite entitlement” complexes of five hundred Israelis at once, have a some-what different opinion of the “Yossi’s.”  I found this out the hard way when I tried to ask one of them if they might possibly sell the duty frees before dinner rather than after… You see, I had finished the Winstons and “The Organized’s” pack of Marlboros was nearly ex¬hausted as well…

“Don’t YOU start up now,” she shrieked, “You’ll be sorry, you hear!  ALL of you are an ‘ASONE TEVA’!!!” (Natural catastrophe).  She wagged her forefinger at me, eyes flashing an unmistakable warn¬ing.  This woman was pissed!  At the moment she seemed to hate me more than fifty Saddams…

“Wha’d I say?  Hey, Yossi, did I say something wrong?”  I looked around for support.  That poor girl.  The jeers, curses, catcalls, and epi-thets that chased her up the aisle were among the worst I had ever heard.  As she fled the deluge, other passengers joined in the deri¬sion…

“Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?…” “This is the worst service I’ve ever encountered!…” “Don’t you shout at the American!…” “Leave those Yossi’s alone!  They cheer everyone up; all you do is kvetch!…” “Where’s my drink, you?!  It’s been half an hour!…” Etc.

It was a great victory, but I still had the problem of the cigarettes to deal with.  One pack was all it had taken to rekindle the bitterest cravings of a confirmed nicotine addict.  “The Organized” insisted that I take his last Marlboro.

“But what will you do?”  I exclaimed.  “What will I do?  What good is one butt?  We’ve got almost nine hours left on this horrible flight!”

“God will provide a lamb for the sacrifice, my son…”  He an¬swered with Biblical conviction.

And damned if he wasn’t right!  “The Curly” was up and rummag-ing through the overhead compartment.  He pulled out a carton of Kents, and, like Jesus before the starving multitude, began tossing packs one-by-one to the eager, outstretched hands of the nic-crazed Yossi’s.  “I bought these for my brother in law.  To hell with him, he’s an asshole anyway…”  Dollar bills began flapping in all directions as we tried to pay him for his largess.  “Te’heyu Bri’im, Azov T’akesef…”  (Be healthy, forget the money).

As happy fresh clouds of poison smoke refilled the cabin, it was mo¬tioned, seconded, and passed by a voice vote that “The Curly” would hereinafter be known among us only as Yossi HaMashiach (The Messiah)…

*        *        *

The vile rubbish that masquerades as “dinner” in economy class is gagged down in good humor.  We all have two or three mini-bottles of wine under our belts before beginning to discuss the “Matzav” (situation).

I kick off the discussion by challenging the row to prove to me that any of them are any less crazy than I am to be flying into this shit-pit of a war.  It turns out only one of them actually lives in Israel at the moment.  The rest are Yordim, like me.  Some still have family in Israel that they are worried about, others don’t.  No one has a really good reason to be going.  I rest my case.

The fact of the matter is, the majority of the people on this plane are returning home because of the same irresistible force that I felt on the night of the Midori.  An ephemeral but powerful need to be a part of what is happening.  My mind wanders, as I recall the movie version of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.  That eerie, mesmerizing wail of the Morlocks’ air raid sirens…  Drawing spellbound people to their deaths below….

RRRRHHhhhhhhhhh…..RRRRRRHHHHHHhhhhhhhh. …RRRR…

“This is the Captain speaking.  The military spokesman in Israel has just announced that the four Patriot Batteries sent by the Americans to Israel are now fully operational.  B’sha’a tova.”  (Lit. in a good hour, just in time).

I join in the subdued cheering and handclapping that erupts through-out the plane.   I look around at the faces of the passengers…  Pain, de-termination and sadness is written all over them.  No real happiness or re¬lief.  Nobody actually believes that these American-manned machines are going to make a difference.  But we all clap anyway.  Davka! (Nevertheless…In Spite of it all…Because of it all)

It was time for business.  We pour ourselves some new mini’s, light up and begin to argue.  There’s an old joke that if you want to hear five different opinions on a particular subject, ask two Israelis…

Everybody agrees that the Patriots are little more than a public re¬la-tions stunt designed to calm the population and give the government po-litical breathing space to decide what to really do about the threat.

There is a division of opinion though, as to whether it is good or bad to have American troops stationed in Israel.  On the one hand, it more firmly commits the U.S. to the defense of Israel.  If Saddam drops gas on Israel he might very well gas Americans at the same time.  It’s a whole different ball of wax when G.I.s get killed than when Jews do.  Especially in the American press.  If that happens, Katie-bar-the-door, as far as Israel’s political ability to justify any re¬sponse it chose to make.  On the other hand, Israel is now responsi¬ble for the G.I.’s safety.  That hinders our ability to take preemptive action that might provoke a gas counter-at¬tack.

Besides, Israel doesn’t want or need to become an American lackey… Look what happened to South Vietnam.  Why are the Americans so eager to send troops to Israel all of a sudden, anyway?  Clearly they want Israel to sit this one out and not endanger the Arab coalition that they built up with such painstaking care over the last six months.  This is part of their plan.  Hamstring Israel.  The Shamir Government now owes Bush for providing them with this po¬litical cover.

This argument ends with a Teyku.  (Lit. The Talmudic expression for an unresolved controversy that must wait for the Messiah to answer it, A draw.)

But what is Israel going to do?  How and when will we strike back?

“The Bearded” is sure that we will have to mount a large com¬mando raid into Western Iraq.  If massive American air strikes can’t do the job, what could our relatively small Air Force accomplish?  We could helicop¬ter or parachute in enough troops to seize either H-2 or H-3 airfields.  Then bring in a much larger force using C-130 Hercules trans-ports.  Kind of an Entebbe operation on a massive scale.  These forces would search and destroy all the mobile missiles in the area before be-ing pulled out.  This analysis sounds eminently reasonable to me, until “The Young” interjects: “‘The Bearded’ has no idea what he is talking about when he says our air-force can’t do the job…”

“The Young”, it develops, is an authority on the subject since one of his brothers is an F-16 pilot.  There could be no comparing the American and Israeli Air Forces as far as precision bombing was con-cerned.  The Americans were not allowed to fly any lower than 500 feet in their at¬tacks.  The Israelis routinely practiced bomb runs as low as 50 feet.  His brother had told him that they could locate a cockroach in the Negev de¬sert and blow its head off while leaving the carapace intact.  That’s how good they were.  The mobile launchers would be no problem to find and destroy….

All Right!  Good to hear!  Sounds pretty convincing to me….

“Both ‘The Young’ and ‘The Bearded’ are forgetting one simple fact,” announces “The Large.”  “Whether we go in with jet fighters or commandos we’re gonna have to cross Jordan to get there…”  King Hussein has said that he will confront any violation of his air space with military force.  He will do it, too.  If he doesn’t, he’ll be hanged from the nearest sour-apple tree his people can find.  Of course, Israel can take care of the Jordanian forces in short order, but it will require an overland invasion across the Jordan river.  A combined operation of air, armour and infantry.  In other words, all out war.  If we want to stop the Missiles, it’s our only choice…  Very depressing thought, but I have to admit he’s right…

“The Small” has been listening silently to this whole exchange.  A wizened man in his seventies, he has sharp, bright, weasel-like eyes that gleam with cunning intelligence.  He holds up a shrunken claw for silence.  “What none of you seem to understand is that we have no choice.  We must and will use atomic bombs on this Bastard…”  Can Israel afford to absorb even one missile attack that uses ABACH?  (Military acronym… Atomic-Biological-Chemical).  Why do we have our own nuclear arsenal, anyway?  For precisely such an occurrence as this… A whirling Dervish of an Arab leader gets hold of non-conven-tional weapons and then backs himself into a political corner of having to use them on Israel.  Didn’t he say he would “incinerate half of Israel”?

“The Small,” it turns out, had actually grown up in Iraq and un¬der-stood their values.  They didn’t give a hoot about human lives.  Not of their enemies, not of their friends, not even their own.  Deterrence simply doesn’t work against this sort of mentality.  They would use that ABACH of theirs even if they knew Israel would retali¬ate with Atomic bombs…

That being the case, it made no sense to abandon our population as sitting ducks, waiting for the gas, or even worse, the germs that Saddam was planning to drop on them.  Sure, there will be some hard political fallout.  But the Russians are in the middle of a civil war, and the Americans will be spared the necessity of a ground attack.  No more Americans killed by Saddam.  That might not go down too badly with the American public.  The end result would justify the means.  Besides, the alternative was unthinkable….

I am reminded of how I had howled as much to Lou Dobbs on the big-screen.  But that was back when I thought there had been gas.  If “The Small” is right in his assessment of the Iraqi mentality, though, he has a real point….

My neighbor, “The Organized” has been wearing a knowing smirk on his face, occasionally interrupting the speakers with puns and other pointless inanities.  “Friends, what no one here has even dealt with is the fact that none of us will be making this decision.  Consider who it is we’re talking about.  Yizhak Shamir… That man hasn’t been able to make a hard decision since his days in Lechi.  (a pre-State underground Zionist faction).  Let me tell you what I think Israel is going to do.  Nothing, that’s what…  We’ll let the Americans do the fighting for us.  If Saddam had gas war-heads for his ridiculous Scuds he would have used them by now.  The fact is, all he’s got are the conventional type… And he couldn’t hit a barn at 50 meters with their accuracy.  The Americans will eventu¬ally manage to take out all of his launchers.  In the meantime, we can ab¬sorb the one or two casualties a day that he’s managed to inflict upon us so far.

Consider how many soldiers we would lose if we followed either “The Bearded’s” or the “The Large’s” plan of action…. Ten, twenty, two hun¬dred?  Why should we throw away that many lives for one or two civil¬ians?  It makes no sense.  We’ll make lots of threatening noises to keep the domestic political pressure at bay, but in the end we’ll do nothing.  Even if I’m wrong about the Iraqis, I know I’m right about Shamir.  We will do nothing because that is the only thing Shamir knows how to do.  And he does it very well.”

The row of Yossi’s grows silent in contemplation of this descrip¬tion of Shamir that they all know to be the gospel truth.  “The Organized” has actually won the argument.  None of us can really say that we know what the Americans, the Iraqis, or the Jordanians will do.  But we all know Shamir.  What a horrible thought!  We might all be slaughtered without even trying to protect ourselves.  And there was nothing Yossi One through Yossi Eight could do about it….

“I’m going to get some Vodka… Any takers?”  I try to dispel the gloom that has settled around us like a cold, dark blanket.  Only “The Organized” is game.  But he doesn’t count.  After all, he won the ar¬gu-ment.  Of course he’d drink…

*        *        *

The hours fly by as does our Jet to the “Holy Land.”  The Yossi’s never recover their former jubilance.  An hour before landing I find myself making mental preparations for survival on the ground.  What if there is an attack while we’re landing?  Or even worse, while we’re disembarking?  None of us have gas masks yet.  Supposedly they are being distributed at the airport, but I assume we’ll have to make it to the terminal first…  The advance warning is only about 90 seconds.  Sitting Ducks…  I look around and see the others clearly absorbed in similar thoughts.  We are all men¬tally grooming our feathers for the event.

“Hey!  Come see!”  “The Young” blurts from his window seat.

We all climb over one another to get a look through a window.  I lie across the laps of “The Small,” “The Bearded” and “The Young,” but I get to see it…

The sun is already sinking low off the Western horizon behind us.  The clouds are lit with pink, yellow and orange pastels.  And there, glass canopies glinting with reflected gold, a pair of camouflage painted F-16 warplanes fly in tight formation, no more than 500 yards from us… The blue Magen David is clearly visible on each tail.

Chail Avir (The Israeli Air Force) is escorting us home.

As I watch, the giant wing-flaps of the 747 come out and down.  With the sounds of servos whining, the plane shudders and pitches forward.

We are starting our descent….

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 12, 2012, 12:55 PM (GMT+02:00)

Palestinian Grad lands on Beersheba outskirts

The combined Egyptian-Israeli-Hamas effort to negotiate an early ceasefire in the current round of Palestinian-Israeli violence struck several major obstacles.

Monday, March 12:  debkafile’s intelligence sources report a Cairo demand for any truce deal to embody a Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami commitment to withdraw their forces from Sinai and stop using the peninsula for terrorist operations against Israel. Egypt’s military rulers are resolved to use this opportunity to chase the terrorists out and restore their control over Sinai.
However, Palestinian leaders, including Hamas, are playing innocent, claiming to the Egyptian mediator Intelligence chief Gen. Murad Muwafi that they have no armed presence in Sinai and would never impair Egyptian sovereignty.

Four days into the Gaza violence, this impasse has brought the mediation effort to a close.
debkafile’s military sources report that acceding to Cairo’s demand would oblige the Palestinian terrorist organizations to dismantle the logistic, operational and military infrastructure they have built in Sinai.  Hamas has even transferred all its weapons manufacturing, including missiles, from the Gaza Strip where it was vulnerable to Israeli attack to safe locations in northern Sinai, along with its training facilities.
This tactic has worked: Most of Hamas’ military facilities were out of reach of Israeli Air Force bombings in the current round of violence because none remained in the Gaza Strip, except for a forward position.
The Egyptian ultimatum would require Hamas to pull its military machine and weapons production back into the Gaza Strip and Jihad Islami to evacuate its terrorist networks which carried out a cross-border attack last August killing 8 Israelis and were preparing a follow-up.
Another obstacle on the road to a ceasefire is Egypt’s refusal to hold direct, or even indirect, talks with Jihad Islami, Tehran’s Palestinian surrogate. Gen. Muwafi addressed his mediation effort to Hamas, a fairly useless exercise since it is the Jihad Islami which has been shooting the missiles.
The breakdown of negotiations, such as they were, has led Israel to escalate its military pressure on Gaza and intensify its air strikes, in the hope of forcing Jihad Islami to stop the missile assaults on its cities.

But for now, its leaders show no sign of being beaten into accepting a truce and are unlikely to do so, so long as Tehran wants the violence to go on.
The Gaza confrontation is therefore evolving into a military clash between Israel and Iran.
Hamas, finding it increasingly difficult to stay on the sidelines, called on all Palestinian organizations Monday to unite and close ranks against “Zionist aggression.”  Hamas lined up with the Jihad sine qua non that a truce be conditional on an Israeli guarantee to discontinue targeted killings of wanted terror chiefs.

For now, the Hamas is still trying to pressure Egypt and Israel into coming to terms on a ceasefire. Failure would inevitably bring Gaza’s ruling faction into the battle against Israel.
Unless these circumstances undergo a radical shift, the million Israelis confined to shelters have no reason to look forward to relief from the missile attacks on their homes and schools – quite the opposite: The conflict looks like escalating.

‘Gaza groups won’t blink first’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Egyptian sources tell London’s Al-Hayat Islamic Jihad, Popular Resistance Committees demand Israel halts strike on Gaza before even considering ceasefire

Elior Levy, Roi Kais

Egypt is reportedly stepping up its efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s terror groups, Ynet learned on Monday.

According to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, Cairo and Jerusalem officials have discussed the matter and Israel has expressed willingness to halt its strike on the Gaza Strip – as long as the “Palestinian resistance factions cease their operations against Israel.”

An Egyptian source told the paper that the Popular Resistance Committees were adamantly against any armistice, unless Israel holds its fire first.

“Israel is the aggressor here so it’s hard to convince the PRC to hold their fire, especially since their new secretary-general was assassinated,” he said.

The Egyptian source added that “Israel’s aggression towards Gaza is another attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuto portray himself as the only man who can brings Israel security, political and economical stability. Israel’s policies are… wrong. They are not being smart,” he said.

Jihadist gearing to fire rockets (Photo: AFP) 

The source, which the paper said was “closely involved in Egypt‘s effort to broker a lull,” added that “Israel, instead of sending a message of peace and harmony, is sending a message of violence and blood.”

He urged the Israeli government to review its policies: “They mustn’t forget their last waragainst Gaza,” he said.

Also Monday, Islamic JihadDeputy Secretary-General Ziad a-Nahala denied his organization was involved in any ceasefire negotiations.

“Israel is the aggressor and so it has to halt fire first. After that, we will assess the situation and decide on a ceasefire,” he said.

Meanwhile, Riyad Mansour, the PLO’s observer to the United Nations, filed a grievance over Israel’s “aggression” with the Security Council, the UN General Assembly and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mansour denounced “Israel’s bloody brutality and terrorist acts against the Palestinian people,” and urged a UN condemnation.

Exclusive: U.N. Won’t Back Down on Iran Nuclear Inspections – The Daily Beast.

Mar 11, 2012 10:00 AM EDT

In an exclusive interview, the head of the U.N.’s nuclear agency says it will demand Iran allow access to a key military site—even if it escalates tensions. Michael Adler reports.

The U.N. nuclear agency will not back off its demand to visit the Parchin military site even if this escalates the confrontation with Iran over its alleged nuclear-weapons work, the agency’s head Yukiya Amano told Newsweek/The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview.

“We’ll pursue this objective until there’s a concrete result,” Amano said in an interview Friday in Vienna in his spacious office on the top floor of the 28-story United Nations building, which towers over the Danube River. The 64-year-old veteran Japanese diplomat has proved to be increasingly tough on Iran since taking over the International Atomic Energy Agency in December 2009.

“We don’t see the reason why they cannot grant us access to Parchin. It is a military site, but we can work out or manage access,” he said. Amano said the stand-off over getting to this test site “has become like a symbol” of Iran’s alleged weapons work and its refusal to be transparent with the international community. He said the agency would “continue to focus on Parchin.”

The impasse over getting to this site threatens to torpedo a new round of investigations by Amano’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that comes as the Iranian crisis escalates toward a possible war.

Iran denies that it wants the bomb and says its nuclear program is an effort to use atomic energy for peaceful ends. But the United States fears Iran is secretly working toward developing nuclear weapons and has spearheaded the passing of four rounds of U.N. sanctions on Iran and a series of bilateral sanctions by the United States, European, and other states to get Iran to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

Iran has refused to let IAEA inspectors into Parchin, 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, despite intense lobbying for this by the U.N. atomic agency since the beginning of the year. The agency wants to visit one area at this sprawling military testing ground where it thinks there is a 19-meter-long, 4.6-meter-diameter metal-and-concrete cylinder where explosive experiments on how to trigger atomic explosions may have taken place.

“We don’t see the reason why they cannot grant us access to Parchin. It is a military site, but we can work out or manage access.”

The situation is all the more urgent since there are reports of activity at Parchin that may be related to cleaning up the site for traces, possibly from use of uranium metal, of any tests. The tests may have used natural uranium to test a nuclear trigger that would compact the core of a bomb with an explosion, or perhaps a neutron initiator that explodes from inside the core to enhance a chain reaction, but any of these would have been a “dry run” without setting off a chain reaction.

Without being specific, Amano said when asked about a possible clean-up: “We have information and there are some moves—there’s something moving out there. Going there soon is better” to find out. Iran denies that a clean-up is taking place at Parchin.

Iranian ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters in Vienna this month that Iran was willing to discuss weaponization questions, which were outlined extensively in an IAEA report last November, and was open to granting access to Parchin. But he warned about politicizing the issue and said a plan covering all issues must first be agreed for going forward, something the two sides have so far failed to do.

The IAEA rejects this linkage to a plan and says the visit to Parchin must be the first step, and not be delayed.

The IAEA began investigating Iran’s nuclear program in 2003, after an Iranian resistance group revealed that the Islamic Republic was hiding the construction of a plant to enrich uranium, which can be fuel for power reactors or the explosive core of atom bombs, and of a reactor that could make plutonium, also a potential bomb material.

The investigation stalled in 2008 over a wide range of questions about activity possibly related to developing nuclear weapons. These included whether Iran was working on the trigger for setting off a nuclear bomb, on a neutron initiator, and on how to make nuclear weapons small enough to fit on top of a missile.

Pressured by international sanctions, which are now targeting the lifeblood of its economy—its oil sales, Iran let in a senior-level IAEA inspection team for two visits this year, in January and February. It denied access to Parchin on both these visits.

The IAEA had visited Parchin twice in 2005 and found nothing suspicious, but, as Amano said, “that time we didn’t have enough information.” Now the information is better, “so to start with [a new round of inspections], we thought that Parchin was a good selection.” He said the IAEA had wanted to have a “good outcome” to report to a meeting it just held in Vienna in March of the agency’s 35-nation executive arm, its board of governors.

An informed source said Parchin was selected as a first step since it had seemed to be one Iran would be able to accept. It did not require giving Iran new documents, a demand that has hindered progress in the investigation. But the IAEA seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest, with more activity at the site in Parchin than the agency has seen there in the past seven or eight years.

The IAEA’s drawing a line and sticking to it is new in its dealings with Iran. The fact is that Amano has transformed, since taking office in December 2009, the way the IAEA reports on the Islamic Republic. His predecessor, Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei, was criticized for being too soft by sticking to a strict, legalistic interpretation of what the agency could do and say. ElBaradei stood up to U.S. pressure to be tougher, as he avoided drawing conclusions about whether Iran was doing weapons work, saying there was no evidence of this, only allegations.

Amano has been more forthright. In his first report, in February 2010, Amano clearly spoke about “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” He continued in this vein, issuing a detailed 12-page annex to a report in November that outlined Iran’s alleged weapons work. The alleged secret project was said to be highly organized until 2003, and may since have continued in a more dispersed form in order to avoid detection by Western states.

Amano denies that he has a political, pro-U.S. agenda, as Iran has charged. A US diplomatic cable from shortly before he took office in December 2009 as IAEA director general, released by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, had described him as “DG (director general) of all states but in agreement with us.” Another portrayed him as “solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”

Amano insisted that his reports, even his expression of disappointment in a statement issued in Vienna at the same moment that his inspectors were flying out of Tehran after their February visit, were factual. “We had been asking access to Parchin. I expressed my disappointment because I (had) really wanted to report something positive, concrete to the March board.”

Amano said that while his reports could be used by some to justify war, this was not what he was doing. He was merely trying to clarify what Iran is doing. Such statements were not “a justification for war at all. It is a justification for our request for clarification. We should not confuse these two things.” He said that in the run-up to the war in Iraq information provided by various inspectors was used to justify the use of force. But, he said, “I am not doing that. What I am doing is that we have information that makes us wary. So we want to clarify. Clarification is not a use of force at all. This is the most peaceful method in order to avoid something worse.”

But he said tension could very well increase if Iran does not cooperate with IAEA efforts by June, when the IAEA board will meet again to review progress. “Yes of course, we could not make a positive report in March [and] tension has increased. If I cannot report something positive in June, that will be the case [again]. But I do not want to see that. So, I am asking for full cooperation from Iran. That is in the interest of Iran too. “